


Reasoning

by quicksparrows



Series: Side by Side – Chrobin [21]
Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2017-03-25
Packaged: 2018-10-10 13:02:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10438290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quicksparrows/pseuds/quicksparrows
Summary: Ada slips out of a council meeting at an inopportune moment, and Chrom follows.





	

.

 

She doesn't look well. In fact, she's seemed off for at least the last ten minutes, and he's certain he's not the only one who has noticed. The busy council room is full of people listening to him speak, but he can see their eyes drift aside here and there, to Ada.

Ada has her teeth grit so hard she looks like she's in pain.

"Prince Chrom, we need your decision on this, then," a councilman says. 

Ada pushes her chair out and Chrom reaches to put a hand on her shoulder; she's just out of reach, but it doesn't matter. She stands up and walks out, her eyes fixed ahead of her despite the numerous eyes swiveling to her. Chrom feels the words dropping from his mouth thoughtlessly, watching her go, and when she reaches the door and slips out, he's forgotten what he was saying entirely.

"Just a minute," he says, pushing himself to stand. 

Immediately the rest of the room stands, too, though protests sing out as well: _we're in the middle of an important matter, milord._

Chrom hesitates. With Frederick traveling, no one's free to be on her heels.

"I'll go," Maribelle offers. She looks concerned, too, and there's a sharpness to her grip when she puts a hand on his shoulder. "They need you here."

"No, you keep them busy," he says patiently. "It's just not like her to walk out in the middle of a meeting. Excuse me."

He slips out from under her hand, and the protests become nothing but a drone behind him as he slips out into the hall. A few startled faces greet him outside, but the back of Ada's head is already out of his line of sight. Chrom looks both ways, weighing his odds. Their quarters, maybe? The library?

"Left," a courtier offers, helpfully.

"Thank you," he says, rushing off. He calls down the hall: "Ada?"

Nothing. The halls of the castle go this way and that, and he finds himself inspecting every direction, trying to guess where. She can't have gotten far––

The blast of a pipe organ sounds out, so loud he nearly startles; the people milling the halls all falter in the bows and curtsies they'd tried to give in passing, and Chrom himself stops in his tracks. The pipes rise up louder and louder, a droning three or four notes just out of harmony. Aggressive. Careless.

Chrom veers into the chapel and makes a hard left up the stone steps to the pipe organ's home, nestled above the chapel pews. Ada comes into view as he takes the steps two at a time; she's standing at the console, bent just slightly over it. He watches her for a moment, and she just holds onto the keys, oblivious to his presence. He doubts she'd even heard his footfall.

"What the hell are you doing?" he shouts, over the pipes.

She releases the keys all at once and turns, sharply.

"What are you doing here?" she asks. "You can't just walk out of a council meeting."

The absurdity of that statement strikes him, whip-smart.

" _You_ just did," he said. "Why are you sticking your head in an organ?"

There's something about her expression when those words leave his mouth that bugs him. Maybe it's the _look_ , that stubborn suggestion that he's still the crazier one. Maybe it's the hurt. Maybe it's the wideness of her eyes, the way they don't quite focus on him.

He backtracks: "Ada, are you okay?"

She's not.

She seems to chew on it, and then she says: "I could hear Grima again. I had to drown it out somehow."

" _What?_ " he says. It tumbles out thoughtlessly, even if he knows what's been happening. And then, more concerned: "It's getting worse, then."

"I wouldn't say so," Ada says. 

"You're rattling half the castle with this thing," he argues, gesturing at the organ. "If you have to leave a council meeting just to blast your ears out, I'd say it's getting a _lot_ worse."

She sighs, and she sits on the organ bench. Her whole frame seems to sag, her spine curved as though Grima himself could press her down to the earth with one great claw. Chrom climbs the last few steps to join her, and he sinks to one knee to peer up at her face. He cups her cheek in his hand; her skin feels clammy.

"Hey," he says.

"It's not worse, it's just getting more consistent," she replies, finally. "It's just over and over and over again. It's all ridiculous, completely detestable."

"Whatever Grima's telling you, you know it's not true, though," Chrom says. 

"Yes, but he's wearing me down," Ada says, and it's so low that her voice is scarcely more than a whisper. "I really am feeling it. I just don't want to hear it anymore because eventually it's going to be easier to just nod along than resist."

_Why?_

"I don't think that will happen," Chrom says. "Love, you're the smartest, most resilient woman in the world. Why would you believe him?"

"Because," Ada says. "You can't try to reason with Grima. He lacks anything to reason with. There is no _complexity_ to him, there's no morality or emotion or internal conflict or fear of being destroyed. He just _is_."

"He must fear being destroyed," Chrom replies. "Otherwise, why would he be invested in the total destruction of anything that could oppose him?"

"He's a dragon-god," Ada says. "He has no person and no logic, Chrom. You have to understand what that feels like on the inside. He has no motivations, just a nature. All the scheming, the plotting –– I could deal with that, but that's in people like Validar, not Grima. Grima lets it happen because it suits him."

Chrom feels a chill settle on him, an acute fear that has a prickle at the back of his neck. He wishes that she'd look him in the eye, but all he has is the tension of her hands on his, and the echoes in his ears where the pipe organ had droned. He has her voice, measured and low.

"Grima alone is just a black pit," she says. "There's no self-reflection, no consideration. No concern for anyone's feelings, because he doesn't have any of his own and never will."

Chrom is silent. She pulls away, prying herself from his grasp, and he stays knelt at her side while she turns back to the organ.

" _That_ is why I am afraid," Ada says. "Rhetoric, tactics, strategy –– it's all useless against him. All I have is sheer force of will, and that's..."

She trails off.

"But you're not doing it alone," Chrom says.

"No," Ada says. There's a pause.  "I have you."

She looks down at the organ keys, her fingers poised to press them again. The silence is deafening, even more so than the drone of the pipes, and she lets out a long breath. Her shoulder deflate again.

"You're likely my greatest weapon," she says, soft and sure. "You're the biggest reason to get through this."

Chrom wishes to turn her around, wishes to grip her and shake her and embrace her, but Ada doesn't budge, her eyes still fixed on the wall, her hands still laid overtop the organ keys. His stomach feels like it's dropping, and yet there's a hope there, a distinct, genuine feeling of _hope_. Chrom knows that Ada is without any doubts about what she's just said.

He sidles in close, and he puts hand over hers, hiding the mark of Grima.

"I am," Chrom says.

But she's shaking, and for the first time, Chrom worries he is going to fail her.


End file.
